Benjamin Smith to take charge as Air France-KLM CEO by Sep 30
Air France-KLM has appointed Benjamin Smith as chief executive officer. Previously, he served as Air Canada’s president airlines and COO
Aug 24, 2018: Air France-KLM has appointed Benjamin Smith as chief executive officer. Previously, he served as Air Canada’s president airlines and COO, where he played a key role in the airline’s economic and commercial development, transformation, value creation and engagement of the teams.
Smith will take up his duties at Air France-KLM at the latest on September 30, 2018. In the meantime, the interim governance structure established on May 15, 2018 will remain in place. Anne-Marie Couderc, non-executive chairman of the Air France-KLM and Air France Boards, and the Management Committee consisting of three members, will continue to perform their duties until then.
On his arrival, Smith will take over executive management of the Air-France-KLM Group and will establish its organisational structure. In a statement, Air France-KLM confirmed that Smith will be “in charge as a priority to revitalise Air France, to give a new strategic impulse to the Group and to work on a new leadership approach with all Air France-KLM’s teams”.
Smith said, “I am very enthusiastic about this new opportunity. Air France and KLM are both airlines well known for the professionalism and commitment of their teams. I am well aware of the competitive challenges the Air France-KLM Group is currently facing and I am convinced that the airlines’ teams have all the strengths to succeed in the global airline market. I have spent my entire career in this industry and I am convinced that the teams of the Air France-KLM Group are its strongest assets for its future success. I believe that over the past two decades I have developed very strong trust-based relations with my colleagues at Air Canada and I am looking forward to meeting the teams at Air France-KLM in September to begin working alongside them.”
Smith has spent the last twenty years at Air Canada but he started out in 1990 at Air Ontario in parallel with his studies and in 1992 set up his own retail corporate travel agency. He successfully helmed this entrepreneurial experience for eight years. In 1999, he also simultaneously took on a consultancy role for Air Canada before finally joining the group in 2002.
